Caesar's Column eBook

CHAPTER II.

Myadventure

My Dear Heinrich:

I little supposed when I wrote you yesterday that
twenty four hours could so completely change my circumstances.
Then I was a dweller in the palatial Darwin Hotel,
luxuriating in all its magnificence. Now I am
hiding in a strange house and trembling for my liberty;—­but
I will tell you all.

Yesterday morning, after I had disposed by sample
of our wool, and had called upon the assayer of ores,
but without finding him, to show him the specimens
of our mineral discoveries, I returned to the hotel,
and there, after obtaining directions from one of the
clerks at the “Bureau of Information,”
I took the elevated train to the great Central Park.

I shall not pause to describe at length the splendors
of this wonderful place; the wild beasts roaming about
among the trees, apparently at dangerous liberty,
but really inclosed by fine steel wire fences, almost
invisible to the eye; the great lakes full of the
different water fowl of the world; the air thick with
birds distinguished for the sweetness of their song
or the brightness of their plumage; the century-old
trees, of great size and artistically grouped; beautiful
children playing upon the greensward, accompanied
by nurses and male servants; the whole scene constituting
a holiday picture. Between the trees everywhere
I saw the white and gleaming statues of the many hundreds
of great men and women who have adorned the history
of this country during the last two hundred years—­poets,
painters, musicians, soldiers, philanthropists, statesmen.

After feasting my eyes for some time upon this charming
picture of rural beauty, I left the Park. Soon
after I had passed through the outer gate,-guarded
by sentinels to exclude the ragged and wretched multitude,
but who at the same time gave courteous admission to
streams of splendid carriages,—­I was startled
by loud cries of “Look out there!” I turned
and saw a sight which made my blood run cold.
A gray-haired, hump-backed beggar, clothed in rags,
was crossing the street in front of a pair of handsome
horses, attached to a magnificent open carriage.
The burly, ill-looking flunkey who, clad in gorgeous
livery, was holding the lines, had uttered the cry
of warning, but at the same time had made no effort
to check the rapid speed of his powerful horses.
In an instant the beggar was down under the hoofs
of the steeds. The flunkey laughed! I was
but a few feet distant on the side-walk, and, quick
as thought, I had the horses by their heads and pushed
them back upon their haunches. At this moment
the beggar, who had been under the feet of the horses,
crawled out close to the front wheels of the carriage;
and the driver, indignant that anything so contemptible
should arrest the progress of his magnificent equipage,
struck him a savage blow with his whip, as he was